Cathay Pacific Asia Miles - New air deal puts Cathay back on Shanghai route

From Tuesday's Standard:

Cathay, Hong Kong's de facto flag carrier, said it has applied to resume passenger flights to Shanghai, a route it was forced to relinquish in 1990, as well as provide additional passenger services to Beijing and increase all- cargo operations to the mainland, tentatively starting in the fourth quarter.

Source: http://www.thestandard.com.hk/news_detail.asp?we_cat=2&art_id=22123&sid=8689724&con_type=1&d_str=20060704

Sounds good.

The article goes into other details of the new Air Services Arrangement, including changes to the way capacity is determined, and Air Hongkong's response as well.

From Tuesday's Standard:



Sounds good.

The article goes into other details of the new Air Services Arrangement, including changes to the way capacity is determined, and Air Hongkong's response as well.

Thank God....now I will be able to earn EQM's with AA...

Thank God....now I will be able to earn EQM's with AA...
And get greeted by name onboard by the purser? And lounge access in HKG? All something I miss greatly every time I have to fly to mainland china.

Any chance that CX will ever have a good route system to some of the major markets in the mainland?

From Tuesday's Standard:



Sounds good.

The article goes into other details of the new Air Services Arrangement, including changes to the way capacity is determined, and Air Hongkong's response as well.


I admit I do not inderstand the Hong Kong/China politics. CX just purchased KA. KA has flights almost every hour from HKG to PVG as well as to many other cities in China from Hong Kong. Does this mean CX is going to add flights to compete against them selves. Are they better of just adding CX code share flight numbers to the CX flights?

Well zman. they might compete, but most certainly not on price! Welcome to chinese politics ;)
There is currently already hardly any competition on the HKG to PVG route, with KA and MU running a cosy little duopoly. Now that CX runs the show completely at KA, they are of course not going to compete on price.
They will mainly use the flights to major Chinese cities to service their transfer requirements. So all the planes will be full of people from elsewhere, whereas KA can then serve the local HK and SHA markets.
Service levels on CX are of course much higher then on KA (not to mention MU....)

Hmm, if it is CX metal to HKG-PVG it will open the flood gate to more diamonds I feel!

Hmm, if it is CX metal to HKG-PVG it will open the flood gate to more diamonds I feel!It doesn't need to be CX metal - it just needs to be either a CX codeshare on KA, or KA being a OneWorld affiliate (and hence Club Miles/points accruing).

It doesn't need to be CX metal - it just needs to be either a CX codeshare on KA, or KA being a OneWorld affiliate (and hence Club Miles/points accruing).

hmm.. that doesn't seems to do give any club mileage on The Club statement. Maybe just have not been booked on the right codeshare flight.

i wonder if they will be granted a prized 6a arrival slot in pvg. (i'm still recovering my jaunt to pek this morning to receive a visitor who just arrived from hk. it amazes me that anyone would pay a premium to take that flight.)

Actually... the delays on evening flights in the past week from PVG/PEK-HKG is shocking... There was one day the last CX flight out of PEK arrived in HKG at 5 something in the morning... whats going on!
The pliot blames the HK airspace full... not sure I'll buy into it..

The discussion over at the Fragrant Harbour forums of PPrune suggest that Chinese ATC is putting heavy flow control on traffic leaving Chinese airspace into HK...

The discussion over at the Fragrant Harbour forums of PPrune suggest that Chinese ATC is putting heavy flow control on traffic leaving Chinese airspace into HK...

I'll have to check out the forums you mentioned because the issue at hand has been driving me nuts for the past several weeks. Initially, like Wongo, I thought the ATC excuse sounded a bit weak, but now I've heard it enough times that I'm starting to thing that it is semi-legit. However, in the absence of further info (which is likely contained in your referenced forums), I'd be loath to go along with the conspiracy theory (i.e. that the Chinese ATC has a vendetta against planes leaving its airspace) because:

1) Japan/Korea/US/Europe departures haven't been similarly affected TMK
2) SZX and CAN flights of myself and my colleagues have had just as many problems as my HK and SIN flights
3) TMK the PEK-SHA sector (including TSN, NKG, HZH, etc) has been even worse.

Making the situation even more interesting is that the access road in and out of PEK has been gridlocking with remarkable frequency recently (presumably due to the construction of offramps to the new terminals).

Story says March of '07 - too bad this didn't happen sooner - I guess I can do KA once (already booked for Nov). I'll welcome the AA miles too...